At first glance, I thought it would be an Ultrabook vs. MacBook Air comparo (it's early here) but no, that one is IMHO closer to the MacBook Pro than the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to the iPad. The Sammy falls on the line of "there are only a few ways to make a good looking Aluminum notebook and Apple doesn't get to have them all to themselves" as far as I'm concerned, though.

That HP laptop is so close that it is insulting, insulting to HP, Apple and consumers. I don't know how they can do it without being embarassed. My present HP laptop, even has a little glowing HP logo on the lid.

I presume Apple didn't trade mark this trade dress otherwise they should hit them with a cease notice.Come on, just grab some Industrial design students, is it really that hard to come up with unique designs!!

:\I clicked on this being all ready to jump on you molitors. I was thinking "oh, it's just some vaguely similar 'they used aluminum'" thing. I apologize, because, um. Wow. That's pretty sad.

It's too bad too, because Apple is far from perfect. It'd be cool to see some innovation even in keyboards, to see somebody trying one of those flat multitouch ones for example. Copying Apple is somewhat surrendering the initiative to be be better then Apple. HP of all places should be capable of investing more in R&D .

It's too bad too, because Apple is far from perfect. It'd be cool to see some innovation even in keyboards, to see somebody trying one of those flat multitouch ones for example. Copying Apple is somewhat surrendering the initiative to be be better then Apple. HP of all places should be capable of investing more in R&D .

Precisely. Apple's not perfect (far from it) so it's sad to see so much effort squandered on just copying others instead of moving the yardstick forward.

Long time ago, I interned for a semester at a fairly large software company and one day management came and said they wanted engineering dept to just replicate some small app and they wanted it to be nearly exactly the same. Any suggestions to do things better and more in tune with their existing product line were rejected. It was extremely demoralizing and people hated coming to work for many months because of it. They were just wholesale copying things. Some guys even left the company that year. Trade press even trashed them for it. Few years after, that company was absorbed into another company because of slow sales. Managers, don't do that to your own companies!

Carrotee wrote:

Benhameen wrote:

The cursor keys are TOTALLY different.

Haha. They managed to fuck up the inverted tee. And an extra column of keys to the RHS of the delete/return/shift looks like an awkward mistake!

Yep. You can find inverted "T" even in dark when you're watching a movie or something. They just messed it up because they didn't understand the original design's purpose.

Yep. You can find inverted "T" even in dark when you're watching a movie or something. They just messed it up because they didn't understand the original design's purpose.

Exactly. Delete/return/shift keys on the RHS edge for the same tactile orientation reasons.

Speaking of HP design. Envy was the name of the first Air-like Voodoo laptop product, which apart from battery life was a reasonable effort. Some nice touches like carbon fibre case and ethernet port on the charger unit. Looks like HP's contemporaneous Voodoo acquisition critically damaged the incoming design DNA. Pity. Apparently all corporate processes are now set to 'clone'.

That's really pathetic. At this point, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in a decade, we have nothing but a bifurcated market split between ripoff Chinese (Vietnamese?) shittops and MacBooks. If inept aping is the best the no. 1 PC manufacturer can offer, I'm willing to bet there will soon be firms who can play their game for cents on HP's dollar.

I'm wondering if we're going to see Apple leapfrog HP with the release of a 15" ultrabook utilizing a LiquidMetal chassis; essentially a glass-metal chassis as light as aluminum and as strong as steel, shiny and polished and hematite black.

I'm wondering if we're going to see Apple leapfrog HP with the release of a 15" ultrabook utilizing a LiquidMetal chassis; essentially a glass-metal chassis as light as aluminum and as strong as steel, shiny and polished and hematite black.

Sure, right after the iPhone that runs on Unicorn blood.

I'll never understand the Liquid Metal fetishism that captured the Web when Apple bought the company.

As for the HP Envy, it's been around for a couple of years now. It's hardly news.

The iPhone is currently manufactured out of glass. I don't see why that "design language" wouldn't translate into the MacBook Pro if the technology allows for it, and as far as I understand Vitralloy, it does!

We already have "glass and metal" as the MacBook Pro design language. "glass metal" seems a logical evolution.

If the only reason you're doing it (or want it to be done) is because you can, then it's fetishism. Real engineering is about finding solutions to problems, not creating solutions in search of problems.

No, I'm just pointing out your original stated reasons for wanting a LiquidMetal chassis were fetshism. I have no problem believing Apple will use LiquidMetal if it confers an advantage, and forgoing it if it doesn't, even if the only advantage boils down to "it's cool and it can't be copied".

My main complaint about Apple Keyboards is that the cursor keys are not full-size and the up and down arrows are shrunk. It would be perfect if they chose to break the front straight line of the keyboard and extend the cursor keysdown like my Dell Inspiron. I use the cursor keys a lot to move around, and now on the Mac I'm trying to go eMacs or find some other key combinations to move around. HP just copied that flaw.

When I recently visited the Windows Store, I was very surprised to see so many different manufacturers copying the MacBook keyboard. It's just crazy.

Does anyone else think that Apple just ripped of the Atari 400 keyboard here? Honestly, I was shocked at the brazen theft of the design, but no one noticed except for me. But seriously, it is the first thing I thought when Apple came out with the new design.

If the only reason you're doing it (or want it to be done) is because you can, then it's fetishism. Real engineering is about finding solutions to problems, not creating solutions in search of problems.

Apple engineering is seeing that there are problems everywhere (caused by idiots who don't know anything about design), and simply doing something right is a huge formula for success.

Why are PC makers so hell-bent on copying the steaming pile of shit that is Apple notebook hardware? No, you morons, having a metallic exterior for a product that is (a) electrical (b) supplied with an ungrounded plug and (c) has wireless radios is one of the worst ideas anyone's ever had.

I'll never understand the Liquid Metal fetishism that captured the Web when Apple bought the company.

Because it sounds cool, and reminds people of the Terminator? Or perhaps, as illustrated in this thread, people have come to recognize that Apple is the only company innovating in laptop design these days, and it's a tantalizing clue as to what Apple may be up to?

Why are PC makers so hell-bent on copying the steaming pile of shit that is Apple notebook hardware? No, you morons, having a metallic exterior for a product that is (a) electrical (b) supplied with an ungrounded plug and (c) has wireless radios is one of the worst ideas anyone's ever had.

Why are PC makers so hell-bent on copying the steaming pile of shit that is Apple notebook hardware? No, you morons, having a metallic exterior for a product that is (a) electrical (b) supplied with an ungrounded plug and (c) has wireless radios is one of the worst ideas anyone's ever had.

Oh, I know why. Because the market is fucking stupid.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but isn't the electrical supply connection to a laptop low voltage DC? Furthermore, do you think if one person got electrocuted from an Apple laptop that the web would ever hear the end of it?

You don't have to like Apple design but you do have to come up with real reasons why.

Why are PC makers so hell-bent on copying the steaming pile of shit that is Apple notebook hardware? No, you morons, having a metallic exterior for a product that is (a) electrical (b) supplied with an ungrounded plug and (c) has wireless radios is one of the worst ideas anyone's ever had.

Oh, I know why. Because the market is fucking stupid.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but isn't the electrical supply connection to a laptop low voltage DC? Furthermore, do you think if one person got electrocuted from an Apple laptop that the web would ever hear the end of it?

You don't have to like Apple design but you do have to come up with real reasons why.

I am an electrical engineer. And you're right: the aluminum case on a MacBook (or any other laptop) is neither shorted to ground or either power voltage. So the fact that the case is aluminum is completely irrelevant; as is the fact that it doesn't come with a ground plug. I'm not sure what point sid0 is trying to make other than "Apple Bad!!1!"

I'm not an electrical engineer, but isn't the electrical supply connection to a laptop low voltage DC? Furthermore, do you think if one person got electrocuted from an Apple laptop that the web would ever hear the end of it?

I am an electrical engineer. And you're right: the aluminum case on a MacBook (or any other laptop) is neither shorted to ground or either power voltage. So the fact that the case is aluminum is completely irrelevant; as is the fact that it doesn't come with a ground plug. I'm not sure what point sid0 is trying to make other than "Apple Bad!!1!"

Plugging ground in makes the shocks go away for me, as it does in all the examples I linked. I'm apparently lucky to have gotten a 3-pin extension cord with the notebook -- many people were told they needed to buy one.

Why are PC makers so hell-bent on copying the steaming pile of shit that is Apple notebook hardware? No, you morons, having a metallic exterior for a product that is (a) electrical (b) supplied with an ungrounded plug and (c) has wireless radios is one of the worst ideas anyone's ever had.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but isn't the electrical supply connection to a laptop low voltage DC? Furthermore, do you think if one person got electrocuted from an Apple laptop that the web would ever hear the end of it?

I am an electrical engineer. And you're right: the aluminum case on a MacBook (or any other laptop) is neither shorted to ground or either power voltage. So the fact that the case is aluminum is completely irrelevant; as is the fact that it doesn't come with a ground plug. I'm not sure what point sid0 is trying to make other than "Apple Bad!!1!"

Plugging ground in makes the shocks go away for me, as it does in all the examples I linked. I'm apparently lucky to have gotten a 3-pin extension cord with the notebook -- many people were told they needed to buy one.

What you are describing sounds like a short between your power supply and your laptop case. If so, this is a potentially very serious defect that shouldnt be solved simply by shorting your case to ground. Send your laptop back to the manufacturer for repairs.

What you are describing sounds like a short between your power supply and your laptop case. If so, this is a potentially very serious defect that shouldnt be solved simply by shorting your case to ground.

Anecdotally, every single person I know who's plugged in an apple notebook in a place with relatively poor wiring has had the issue there. Sounds like a serious defect with the entire idea of metallic exteriors for notebooks if you're correct that they aren't shorted by default, yet they can get shorted so easily.

Quote:

Send your laptop back to the manufacturer for repairs.

I could do that after un-voiding my warranty, but given how many friends have taken their shocking notebooks to apple and were told to just use a 3-pin cord instead (example) or to fix their power supply, I wouldn't hope for much.